Joey Castle Rock & Roll Daddy-O (CD)

Known for a handful of fabulously rare rock 'n' roll singles, Joey Castle was a mystery man until we stumbled on a collector in Canada who had found out everything there was to know about this elusive New York rock 'n' roller. The photos, the demos, the RCA recordings, and the never-before-told story make this an exciting one-of-a-kind package for Fifties rock 'n' roll collectors, especially those who like the Elvis sound. Songs include Wild Love, That Ain't Nothing But Right, Lucy Ann, and Phantom Lover.

Excerpt from the booklet Rock & Roll Daddy-O (CD) BCD15560
I first heard Cliff Rivers' (Joey Castle) recording of True Lips in 1976 or 1977 and it instantly became a favorite of mine. Released in 1964, True Lips sold only a few thousand copies and most of those in Britain. It was, unfor-tunately, Joey's best selling record. True Lips had made such an impression upon me that I became obsessed with finding out more about the artist who recorded this outstanding release.

While working on 'The Other Kings' LP, I had managed to trace down Maurice Keeys, the writer of Marsha and an acquaintance of Joey's. Keeys seemed to know little more about Joey (Cliff Rivers) than he established, however, that Joey Castle and Cliff Rivers were the same artist, and both these names were pseudonyms for Joseph Castaldo. This was about 1978 or 1979, and was the first bit of informantion I was able to gather about the art-ist.

Keeys also told me a brief story about how he and Joey met Sid Prosen, the owner of Thanks Records. This was really the only useful information which Maurice Keeys was able to supply. He hadn't seen Joey in years nor knew how to get in touch with him. In all seriousness, though, he stated he'd try to "... find him on the street". I was amused but desperate for information so one month later I wasted another long distance phone call to Maurice Keeys. He hadn't metJoey on the street and I gave up on Maurice Keeys.

Sid Prosen had -and probably still has a- keen eye for talent but liked pseudo-nyms. For example, he didn't like the sound of Simon and Garfunkel, so he recorded them under the name of Tom and Jerry. He didn't like the name Joey Castle, so he recorded him under the name of Cliff Rivers. Sid Prosen was unable to help in my search for the elusive Joey Castle. Mr. Prosen's only link to Joey consisted of a nearly 20 year old address in the Bronx which I already had. He also knew, as I did, that Joey wasn't there any longer. Sid Prosen did remember that Joey had a handicapped sister but knew nothing else about Joey or his career. Sid Prosen was surprised to learn of the RCA and Headline releases - I guess Joey made no mention of them to him. Neither S id Prosen nor I knew, at that time, about the Presley demos.

During my many trips to New York I would continually call all the Castaldos listed in the phone book trying to find a relative of Joey. If you take all the New York boroughs and a common Italian name like Castaldo, you've created no easy task. Anyway, initially, I failed. I had either skipped the right one or failed for some other unexplained reason.

It was now 1982, and I was again in New York. I had a little free time and what better way to spend it than looking for Joey Castle! I began calling the Castaldos and this time I got lucky. On the other end of the telephone I was talking to one of Joey's cousins. She couldn't help me very much but would have someone call me who could. A short time later Joey's nephew phoned me. He also knew little about Joey's career but gave me Joey's mother's ad-dress and phone number. Joey's mother was a kind woman who had a hard life looking after an invalid daughter with little time left to follow her son's career.

Family members told me that the one person who took an interest and knew a considerable amount about Joey's career was his father. He was buried the day that I managed to track down Joey's mother. Although it was too late to include the new biographical information in 'The Other Kings' album, I knew someday someone would release a Joey Castle record and I would be able to reveal this newly gathered information.

Joseph Fohn Castaldo was born on June 24, 1942, in the Bronx, N.Y. He decided to record under the name of Castle to take advantage of the name recognition which his uncle, the big band leader Lee Castle, had earlier achieved. At only sixteen years of age Joey Castle marched into RCA Victor with a demo tape, and on the basis of that tape managed to persuade RCA to record him.